C1 Chapter 1

“Good heavens,” sighed Elisabet’s mother, holding a white-powdered wig in front of her. “It may be all right for you to wear your hair like that when you’re at home. Your father is much too compliant, constantly giving in to your whims. But now we’re going to Christiania, the capital of Norway, and we’ll be in a world of rank and fashion where you just can’t look the way you do! With your own hair! Without any powder in it! You look like a tart!”

Elisabet Paladin of the Ice People shook her head so that her brown curls shone like chestnuts in the sunlight glow. “What’s the matter with my hair? I can’t stand those horrible wigs: they stifle me! Besides, haven’t you seen those adorable little chicks in their wigs scratching their necks so that the wigs slip down? And such pent-up horrors foster lice!”

Tora, her mother, gave in to her headstrong nineteen-year-old daughter. “Well, keep your hair the way it is then. It has enough volume to be put in a chignon. We can ask Mrs Sørensen to come and dress it: she can give it height with hair pads and maybe fasten it with some flowers and birds’ feathers, and we’ll powder it so that it looks quite white. I’m sure it will look very nice in the end.”

“No,” Elisabet yelled. “I’ve told you that I’m allergic to powder!”

“Nonsense!” Elisabet’s mother slapped the powder puff onto her daughter’s hair so that she almost disappeared in an enormous white cloud.

Elisabet coughed and gasped for breath.

“Don’t put on airs,” her mother said. Nevertheless, she was shocked when she saw her daughter’s eyes turning red and brimming with tears. She hurriedly waved away the powder and brought some water. She was almost cracking up with nerves. Elisabet’s nose was so congested that it took quite a while for her to utter a word. Her mother seized this opportunity to give her daughter a curtain lecture on how hopeless father and daughter were.

“Your father hasn’t come home yet and we’re leaving at four! How am I to put up with you two? He’s down by the river keeping an eye on the rafting with that obnoxious Vemund Tark. Does it never occur to either of you that you belong to the great nobility? The Paladin Family were margraves, but you walk around with your natural hair and your father’s keeping an eye on a raft! He doesn’t have to do that! Now and then, I can’t help being so ashamed of the two of you that it almost drives me crazy!”

Mrs Tora came from a good, respectable family, and she was of the opinion that she had made a good match when she married a Paladin. She was the only one who went on about the margrave title. She wanted Ulf to keep it, but he did not want to because Norway had abolished its nobility. Tora was an extremely efficient mistress at Elistrand: kind and warm-hearted in her own way and very much respected in the village. Nevertheless, at times Ulf and Elisabet thought that she could be quite a handful.

It was 1770 and Elisabet would soon be twenty. Everybody knew that Mrs Tora was scheming to get her daughter married soon, and it would have to be a good match. That was why her mother was focusing so much on their journey to Christiania, where they would get to meet the city’s notables. At any rate, they would get to see them at close range.

Elisabet had regained her power of speech. “Who’s Vebudd Talk?”

“What are you talking about?”

Elisabet blew her nose. “Who’s Vemund Tark?”

“A barbarian, if you ask me. The Tarks own an absolutely idyllic mansion outside the city boundary of Christiania, high above the crowds and shielded by a well-kept park. Charming people! If I had such a home, I wouldn’t live anywhere else for all the world. Yet the eldest son, Vemund, insists on living primitively in a little cottage deep in the forests that belong to the mansion house.”

“Tark? Aren’t they the ones who own lots of land?”

“They own an incredible amount. Forests and sawmills and timber yards and goodness knows what. We could have done likewise; we could be making a fortune if Liv, your ancestress, hadn’t been stupid enough to sell the timber yard she inherited from her first husband. You Ice People have never been able to run a business. Just look at your father! He’s satisfied with Elistrand. We might have had both Graastensholm and Linden Avenue if he hadn’t been stupid enough to insist that they belong to distant relatives in Sweden – people who are never here!”

She looked wistfully out of the window towards the somewhat more magnificent Graastensholm.

“Aunt Ingrid still lives there,” Elisabet replied, seeing a chance to hide the horrible wig behind the log basket.

“The old witch,” Tora murmured absentmindedly. This was a truth that Elisabet could not deny.

“Her son, Uncle Daniel, is thinking of settling there when he retires from office.”

“He’ll never move here; he’s much better off in Sweden,” said her mother confidently. “Graastensholm will be empty when Ingrid passes away. If she ever does. She’ll turn out to be just as tenacious of life as Ulf’s grandfather, Ulvhedin.”

Elisabet looked sadly in the direction of Graastensholm. It seemed as if she could already hear the wind whistling in empty window openings and tumbledown towers. That would be terrible, it just must not happen; it was bad enough that people from outside the family might rent Linden Avenue. “Uncle Daniel is bound to end up here in Norway. If he doesn’t, his children will.”

Tora merely snorted. “You Ice People have never been grounded! Anyway, thank God you didn’t turn out like Ingrid or Ulvhedin.”

“One of the stricken?” Elisabet smiled. “Wouldn’t that have been fun!”

“Fortunately, that abomination seems to be a thing of the past. No one in the family has been cursed either in your father’s generation or in yours.”

“You forget – there was one in Dad’s generation. The one called Mar, whom we’ve never seen. And also young Shira was chosen, wasn’t she?”

“I don’t believe in all that,” Tora said obstinately. “Siberia and God knows what!”

“Shira came here once when Dad was a child,” Elisabet protested. “And her half-brother, Örjan, met her and Mar later when he was in Siberia.” She was pensive. “You’re right, Mum. There aren’t any stricken ones in my generation. Not me, nor Örjan’s son, nor Daniel’s two children. None! Dad and Aunt Ingrid believe that Shira can take the credit for that, and it’s probably because she found the clear water that the curse was lifted from the family.”

“I sincerely hope you’re right,” Tora muttered. She had already forgotten that she did not believe in the crazy story about Shira’s magical walk.

Although she would often complain about her family, because they were Ice People, Tora idolized Ulf and Elisabet. She just found it so difficult to show her love properly because she was an altogether different type of person, and had been brought up differently.

Tora’s thoughts touched upon an area of horror and shame. She accused the Ice People of not being down-to-earth, but she lived in constant fear that they would find out that she allowed herself to be addressed by the title of “Margravine” in her own parish. She would die of shame if they found out.

Elisabet started. “Look, Mum! The old farmhand is running up from the river!”

Tora opened the window at once. “What’s the matter, Nils?”

The farmhand stopped, swaying from exhaustion. It was a few seconds before he was able to answer in a weak voice. “My son fell in the river! They managed ... to pull him out of the water, but he’s badly hurt. The master said that I was to ask you to come down with needle and thread.”

“I’m on my way,” Elisabet said at once. “Hitch a horse and follow after me so that we can bring him home. I’ll saddle my horse and take the medical bag.”

“You’ll use a side saddle,” her mother said in a warning tone. “And put something over your unruly hair. There are men out there! Rough, crude rafters!”

“Nonsense,” Elisabet shouted on her way out of the door. “This is about life or death.”

The major part of the Ice People’s fabled supply of herbs and medicines was with Ingrid at Graastensholm. But Elistrand had its own collection, which Elisabet now fetched.

The farmhand had already disappeared into the stable, and she dashed after him. A moment later, Tora saw her daughter zoom out on her horse.

The mother opened the window again. “Elisabet!” she shouted, shocked. “Not astride! And without a saddle! Elisabet! Elisa ...”

Her resigned voice faded away.

“The party,” Tora murmured to herself. “At last, we had a chance to marry her off to a civil servant! Maybe even a clergyman!”

Now some miserable rafter might upset that chance!

Elisabet’s father, Ulf Paladin – Jon’s son and Ulvhedin’s grandson – was self-confident, robust and horny-handed, with a broad, jovial face. He had been down by the river all day long, bringing some order to the timber on the river, which had got stuck like a cork. He was with Vemund Tark, who had bought the timber from him and who was more interested in this kind of outdoor work than in sitting in an office in town collecting money. All the farmhands were struggling with the logjam. The river that flowed past Graastensholm Parish was not big but it fulfilled its function, creating the basis for fishing, forestry and a sawmill. The rafters shouted to one another above the sparkling splashes of water; their language was peppered with oaths, but they knew their stuff – most of them, anyway ...

“Nils’s blighter of a son is a daredevil,” Ulf said. “If he continues like this, we’ll have an accident on our hands.”

Vemund nodded. He was a jewel of a man who moved swiftly, with a slightly restless manner. He had a noble profile and his personality seemed to reflect something pent-up, wounded and vulnerable. His mouth was strong and sensitive at the same time, his hair dark blond, thick and curly, and his complexion showed that he was an outdoor man.

They sat on a ledge, keeping an eye on the rafting while their soaked clothes and boots dried in the sun, because they had also been making an extra effort out in the river. Ulf said in his good-natured manner: “When I met your brother yesterday, I was quite surprised. He’s not at all like you.”

“No,” Vemund said thoughtfully. “My younger brother is in a difficult position. A life like this intimidates him, but he knows that he’ll inherit neither the businesses nor the estate. Everything will go to me, as the law prescribes. I’ve suggested that he take over at least parts of it, but he won’t hear of that. No charity, thank you! My younger brother is so proud and pig-headed!”

Ulf looked pensively at Vemund Tark out of the corner of his eye. “Oh, well. You also have your quirks. You don’t want to live at Lekenes.”

“That’s a different matter altogether,” Vemund said curtly. “I don’t belong in elevated circles.”

“I would have thought you would fit in beautifully,” Ulf said with a glance at the noble profile. “In different clothes from what you’re wearing now, of course, and with powdered hair. By the way, is your brother just called Lillebror?”

“No, his name’s Arnold, which also happens to be my father’s name – that’s why he has always been known as Lillebror. I believe everyone, including himself, has forgotten that he has another name.”

Ulf smiled. “He isn’t exactly small. A handsome man!”

“I think the girls will agree with you on that. He’s twenty-three now, two years younger than me, and he’s wasting his life; all he does is stay at home with our parents. I’ve often thought that an estate or a business that would allow him to marry would be his salvation. Something to be responsible for. You see, he’s quick on the uptake but right now he’s powerless. No, don’t touch those logs!” Vemund Tark shouted out across the river. “It will cause chaos!”

The rafters saw that the warning made sense and began to loosen the logjam from a different side. “We have a similar problem at home,” Ulf smiled wryly. “We have only one daughter, and she just must not marry an heir to an estate or land because it will cause havoc! She’s to inherit Elistrand, our home, and possibly another two farms in the parish.”

“You mean Graastensholm?” Vemund asked discreetly.

Ulf nodded. “The solution is for her to find a good farmer’s son who isn’t an heir.”

“I see. There are plenty of them around. Younger brothers ... Sometimes I wish I was one of them. To be allowed to choose one’s occupation, one’s course of life. To work hard to become something. Not like now, when I’m obliged to take over an established business and an estate that I don’t really want.”

Now Ulf Paladin understood why Vemund Tark preferred to be outdoors, working with his bare hands. The feeling of achieving something ...

“The farms in Lekenes are impossible to match,” he protested. “And such an inheritance ...”

“It’s not an inheritance,” Vemund interrupted. “They bought it fifteen years ago.”

“Your parents? Well, I never! I thought you had a slight touch of a foreign accent in your speech. Where are you from?”

Vemund Tark stood up. “Mind what you’re doing!” he shouted. “Oh, dear!”

“That was Nils’s son, Edvin,” Ulf said, getting rapidly to his feet. “Come on!”

They ran down to the bank. Without hesitation, Vemund jumped into the cold water. With the help of his friends, young Edvin, who had been wedged between the logs in the fall, had managed to extricate himself and was now drifting unconscious with the current, beyond the reach of the long raft hooks.

Old Nils moaned loudly.

“Not to worry, Nils. Tark has a firm grip on him,” Ulf Paladin said.

“There’s so much blood. The whole river is red!”

“Everything will be alright. Run home and fetch the medicine bag. Ask my wife for it.”

“What if he’s already ...”

“He isn’t dead. Look! He just stretched out his arm. The water probably revived him. Please hurry up; the others are coming now and they’ll help to get him ashore.”

The old man was off as quickly as he could go.

A bit farther down the bank, the drenched men were pulled ashore. Everybody rushed up to them and the logjam had to wait.

Edvin, the young boaster, who had sworn that he was just as good a rafter as the experienced men, now looked pretty pathetic. He was bleeding from a deep gash in his thigh and one arm appeared to be broken. Ulf explained: “His father has run to fetch the medical bag. In the meantime, we must try to stop the bleeding. What did you do out there, Edvin? I told you, didn’t I? That this was no game for beginners.”

“I’m dying!” Edvin yelled. ”I’m dying!”

“No, you’re not. But it will probably hurt for a while.”

Fortunately it was a hot day, and the men got dry in the sun while they tried to help the casualty. This was not at all easy because Edvin screamed and could not stand anybody touching him.

Vemund Tark looked up. “Well, finally, here comes a servant girl. She’s riding as if the devil is at her heels.”

Ulf glanced at the path. “That’s not a servant girl, it’s my daughter,” he said curtly. Vemund opened his eyes wide at the sight that came thundering along the path. A mop of hair without any powder in it was waving like a mane behind her, she sat astride her horse and you could see her thighs when her skirts fluttered in the wind. Was this really the young lady of the estate?

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I made a mistake.”

Ulf smiled to himself. “Elisabet does as she pleases, much to her mother’s despair. But she’s an honest and decent girl with impeccable morals.”

“She can certainly ride a horse,” Vemund said, “and without a saddle or harness.”

Elisabet jumped off the horse even before she had reached Ulf and Vemund and ran the last bit. She fell on her knees in front of Edvin, who was pale in the face, and inspected his wounds.

“We think he’s also broken his arm,” her father said.

Elisabet looked at the arm and said: “No, it’s just his shoulder that’s dislocated. One moment ... Take a firm grip here, Dad!” She got the shoulder in place with a jerk. Edvin yelled like mad and then passed out.

“I say!” said Vemund, shaken. He had never seen a woman act so resolutely. He said to Elisabet: “You seem very talented.”

She didn’t even bother to look up at him. “My great-grandfather, Ulvhedin, taught me, and later on, Aunt Ingrid. I’m the one who is to inherit the Ice People’s sacred treasure after her because there are no cursed or chosen relatives after those two.”

Vemund looked questioningly at Ulf but he had no time to explain.

“Take the clothes off his lower body,” Elisabet said.

The crowd of men who stood in a circle around them let out a shocked sigh: none of them could bring themselves to obey the order.

“Maybe it’s not such a good idea for a lady ...” Vemund Tark started to say.

“Now, don’t be stupid,” Elisabet hissed impatiently. “Is this about the boy’s life or my virtue? I can assure you that it’s under my full control.”

“Elisabet has witnessed several things worse than this,” Ulf said, almost apologetically, pulling off Edvin’s trousers. “Her great dream is to become a doctor – which is impossible, of course, because one day she will inherit our estate. Meanwhile, she’s very bored. Isn’t that right, Elisabet?”

“I just want to do something sensible,” she said without looking up from the long gash. “Being a daughter at home on an estate with two very efficient parents and so many servants is boring and futile. Put a firm hand here,” she said to Vemund’s hands. “Press the edges of the wound together!” He obeyed without a word.

Elisabet looked more closely at his hands. They were nice to look at. Big, strong and horny from the sun and rough weather, but also rather long and sinewy with sensitive fingers.

Finally, she allowed herself to look up at their owner. She could tell immediately that this was not the usual rafter or farmhand. The intensely blue eyes that looked searchingly into hers told her that they belonged to a person who was well bred and cultured. The mouth was extremely alluring. Elisabet became deeply fascinated by the pure, masculine lines. She was looking into a distinctly noble face. This was bound to be her mother’s notorious Vemund Tark.

What was it that those eyes were hiding? What kind of intimidating abyss existed in this man’s consciousness? How could so much bitterness show so clearly on such a young face?

Elisabet was neither cursed nor chosen. She was an ordinary girl – but beyond any doubt, she was one of the Ice People. She perhaps resembled Cecilie and Villemo the most, or maybe Ingrid in her younger days. But Elisabet had an unexpected shyness, which could not be said of the others.

She was confused because Vemund Tark was gazing at her so intently that she had to lower her eyes. Without noticing it, she pulled down Edvin’s shirt, scantily covering his most private parts.

She muttered: “I have to stitch the wound. He’s unconscious.”

A modern doctor would have wept at Elisabet’s primitive surgery, not least at the lack of hygiene, but the men were deeply impressed. Quite a number had to look away when she put the needle into Edvin’s skin.

Vemund did not say a word but the look he gave Ulf Paladin said a lot.

The pain woke Edvin and three men had to hold him down until Elisabet had finished her job. Old Nils wept and prayed to God for forgiveness because they were hurting his creation. He felt that Elisabet was very insensitive and brutal. At last she stood up and carefully brushed her skirts. They carried the moaning Edvin up onto the cart that his father had brought; Elisabet nodded and gave everyone a nervous smile. She did not mount the saddleless horse again but climbed up with Edvin in the cart. Vemund stepped forward carefully in order to help her up and over the side. Elisabet did not dare to meet his glance again because this would ask too much of her openness. The horse followed freely behind the cart.

It was a pretty astounded Ulf who stood watching. He had seen a completely new side to his very cheerful and dauntless daughter.

Vemund Tark stood next to him. “I’ll drop by your house for a moment when you’re finished here. Is that all right with you?”

“Sure,” Ulf answered absentmindedly.

As he would always do when he came home, Ulf went straight upstairs. He knocked on the door and was invited in. Ulvhedin, his grandfather, sat upright in a chair, looking out of the window. Ulf’s parents, Jon and Bronja, had passed away and so had his grandmother, Elisa, but Ulvhedin lived on. He was ninety-six years old, yet he did not look particularly frail.

“How did the logjam turn out?” the old man asked. He always kept himself up-to-date with what was going on. “In the end, we managed to free it,” Ulf sighed. He was pleased with what they had accomplished.

“What kind of accident was it?”

Ulf was by no means surprised that his grandfather knew about it. “It was Nils’s son, Edvin. Elisabet was really efficient.” He gave an account of events, and by now he was sitting on the bench and had lit his long pipe.

“Yes, she’s a good girl,” Ulvhedin said.

Ulf did not speak about the new, soft and feminine Elisabet. He merely said: “She’s turned out to be a mixture. An ordinary girl with the good qualities of the stricken.”

“That’s true. I’m glad you named her after my Elisa.”

The grandson sighed deeply and got up. “We’re certainly happy that Shira managed to quell the nightmare, that has troubled our family for so long. It’s good to know that no more cursed children will be born, and that no afflicted children will follow me in the next generation.”

Ulvhedin looked out of the window. Then he said slowly: “Dragons’ teeth.”

“What do you mean by that, Grandfather?”

Ulvhedin turned his awful yet much loved face towards Ulf. “Dan – Daniel’s father – who knew so much, told me about a legendary Greek hero who killed a dragon and sowed its teeth ...”

“Yes. And then armed warriors grew out of the earth?”

“Precisely. It’s the same with the Ice People’s curse. Destroy it – and new stricken members will appear.”

“You believe that Shira’s feat wasn’t sufficient?”

The old man did not reply.

“But surely Elisabet is ...”

“There’s nothing wrong with Elisabet.”

Ulf wrinkled his eyebrows. “Örjan has a son, young Arv, whom they’re immensely proud of down in Scania. An extremely pleasant boy with blue eyes. Daniel has two children – a son, Sölve, and a daughter, Ingela. We’ve seen both of them. Brown-eyed and so cheerful, with no hint of a fateful curse over them.”

“That’s true. There’s nothing wrong with any of those four. Nevertheless, Ulf ... the dragons’ teeth have been sown.”

Ulf looked inquisitively at his grandfather. Then he breathed slowly through his nose and left the room. He was worried about Ulvhedin. It would be better for the old man if he could stay with Ingrid at Graastensholm, but Tora would not hear of it. She considered it her duty to take care of her husband’s grandfather: if she seemed not to be doing so, what might the neighbours think?

Tora bullied the old man with her know-all attitude while at the same time griping about what a cross it was for her to bear having to put up with him. No wonder the sprightly Ulvhedin kept to himself in his room, where he was not in anyone’s way.

Vemund Tark turned up at about sunset in the same damp clothes he had been wearing down by the river. He greeted the ladies politely. Tora was not terribly impressed. Most of the Tarks were certainly charming people but this strapping fellow, Vemund, was not one of them.

Elisabet regarded him with ill-concealed admiration. He was a man who matched her taste: debonair, elegant – but with an aura of crude wildness about him.

They wondered what his errand could be. He came to the point swiftly.

“Mrs Paladin ... Ulf. For about a week I’ve been looking for a woman who might help me in my crazy, double dilemma. I have a female relative who needs constant care. She cannot be left on her own. The woman who has cared for her up until now has died and I have no idea what to do. Young Miss Elisabet here wants a more meaningful occupation than just hanging about on this estate. And besides, she knows a great deal about medicine. As for the other matter ...”

Elisabet held her breath. What on earth was he driving at?

Vemund Tark went on: “Ulf, you said that your daughter needed to marry a younger brother in a family; someone who is not tied to a house or a family business; someone who can live here with her in this village. If your daughter accepts this position with my ... relative until I find some other help, then she will have the time to get to know her future husband in a natural way and maybe get to like him. Miss Elisabet seems to be a strong-willed woman, able to cope with unexpected situations.”

He took a deep breath, then said: “Mrs Paladin, Ulf ...On behalf of my younger brother, I ask for your daughter’s hand ...”